User talk:Gvsualan/archive
Please leave your questions and comments below. Previous talk pages are archived at here and here. Wikification of disambiguation pages? Hi Alan. I deliberately did not add additional wiki links on that disambiguation page. One of Wikipedia's MoS-pages defines a common style for their disambiguation pages and states that additional links (those not used for the disambiguation process itself) are considered distracting. I agree with that statement and tried to start a discussion about an own MoS regarding this here (subsection "Manual of Style?"). Can I get you to comment on that? Thanks :) -- Cid Highwind 18:10, 7 Jan 2006 (UTC) * I was just going along with the style that a very large percentage of our other disambiguation pages on M/A use. --Alan del Beccio 18:46, 7 Jan 2006 (UTC) Image Sizes Actually, I noticed the size of my images violated policy just yesterday. Possibly because of my software (Photoshop) and platform (Mac), I couldn't trim them down without significant loss of quality. I'm sorry you had to take the time fixing my images, but glad you could salvage them. I will not upload any more images until I can figure out a remedy. --Aurelius Kirk 20:31, 7 Jan 2006 (UTC) * Let me check the DVD for the correct spelling of Don Ingalls' pen name. Even now, I'm not sure if it is "Judd" or "Jud" Crucis. I first thought it was Jud, but noticed that the episode page here had it as Judd, so I went with that, assuming you guys were correct and my memory was at fault. - Sir Rhosis 23:09, 7 Jan 2006 (UTC) ** The Star Trek Encyclopedia says "Jud" and the Star Trek Concordance says "Judd", so whatever the episode credits say is where it must go. --Alan del Beccio 23:11, 7 Jan 2006 (UTC) ** Just checked the DVD, it is definitely spelled J-U-D. Sorry if I've confused the issue. I'll let you do the edits, as I'm still new and clumsy here. - Sir Rhosis 23:19, 7 Jan 2006 (UTC) Howdy Alan. About those huge images of mine... I've got a much better handle on that now. The ones you trimmed are still in the 60-80k range, and I've gotten them (and some others) down to 20-40k without much loss of quality. Do you think it's worth it for MA, if I uploaded about 30+ replacement images? Would that just clog the logs? Should I just leave things be? I'm happy to do it, but I wanted some advice first. Thanks --Aurelius Kirk 15:32, 15 Jan 2006 (UTC) Kang * I just edited out a snarky comment from someone who disputed the augment theory by stating that Kang looked completely normal in "Flashback." By normal, I assume he was trying to say that Kang looked like he did in "Day of The Dove," which he did not. Ansara wore "younger" looking hair and beard make-up, but had his ridge brows, etc. Also, reference is made on that page to "Kang's Summit." I swear I recall that Martok said "Kang's Point," not "summit." But I will not change it, as I don't have that episode ("In SOMETHING'S Shadow" or whatever it was callled. * I see that. Thanks. And it's Kang's Summit, we have a whole article on it. ;) --Alan del Beccio 07:39, 8 Jan 2006 (UTC) Birthright Sorry for saving the summary, but I didn't know it was a cut/paste job! Wouldn't it have been enough to respond to me on my talk page? I had absolutely nothing to do with Birthright, Part II, and yet you were still complaining about me there! --Defiant Administrator | ''Talk'' 14:07, 14 Jan 2006 (UTC) Yes, I was involved with Birthright, Part I, but I have absolutely nothing at all to do with Birthright, Part II. I am therefore completely irrelevant to the article and should not be mentioned on the talk page. --Defiant Administrator | ''Talk'' 14:11, 14 Jan 2006 (UTC) * I wasn't "complaining." I was explaining something that everybody should know and that was specifically referred to you becuase you reverted the edit without using the talk page. And if I left the comment in the wrong talk page, I apologize, nonetheless it is still relevant to your reverting without doublechecking or without explaining your revert in the talk page (not summary bar). --Alan del Beccio 14:12, 14 Jan 2006 (UTC) ** Wait, what are you talking about. All of my comments both before and after are in reference to your revert to Birthright PtII. --Alan del Beccio 14:15, 14 Jan 2006 (UTC) *** And seriously, it has everything to do with you, so try to act a little more mature about how you deal with things-- as in removing or editing other users comments. Ok? Mr. Administrator. --Alan del Beccio 14:17, 14 Jan 2006 (UTC) Firstly, why are you even responding to my comments on your own talk page, and with such frequency that I can't respond because I continually get an "edit conflict" message? Secondly, I did not touch "Birthright, Part II", yet you refer to my supposed "revert to Birthright PtII"! Thirdly, we seem to have completely different ideas about how to use talk pages (which is the point that a lot of this discussion seems to be centered around). If administrators like ourselves can't work out how to use discussion pages, how are regular passers-by meant to? I think we should have a sensible discussion about this subject without the name-calling (i.e. "Mr. Administrator", etc.) and sort this issue out with the least amount of conflict. --Defiant Administrator | ''Talk'' 14:29, 14 Jan 2006 (UTC) Sorry, my mistake - I just realized that it was Birthright, Part II I changed, not Birthright Part I (must have become confused!) --Defiant Administrator | ''Talk'' 14:45, 14 Jan 2006 (UTC) * That's what I've been trying to say all along...--Alan del Beccio 14:52, 14 Jan 2006 (UTC) I'm so sorry - the whole thing seems to have arisen from my own confusion! "Defiant" Signature Your use of "Mr. Administrator" above seems to have been used in a derogatory manner. Do you think I should change it? I originally changed my signature to "Defiant Administrator" with the intention of showing passers-by that they could contact me if they were being bothered by vandalism and no other admins were around to help out. Do you think it should be changed back to simply "Defiant"? * I think it is a little unnecessary, considering there are like 19 of us administrators and you seem to be the only one advertising it. Kind of comes across a bit "I'm better than you"-ish. -- Alan DelBeccio User talk pages I've looked through the policies and guidelines on MA and haven't found anything about a user using their own talk page to respond to other users. One problem I've had with that is the "edit conflict" message appearing, which I referred to above. Another problem that I think could arise is presented below. Hypothetically, A user could leave a question on B user's talk page, shortly before A user leaves MA. If B user replies to the question on their own talk page, A user might not see it. If B user leaves the question on A user's talk page, A user will see "new message" when they next visit and it's much more likely that they will see the reply. I think there should be some advice in the policies and guidelines area to avoid both these problems from happening. --Defiant Administrator | ''Talk'' 15:19, 14 Jan 2006 (UTC) :Common sense should be to use talk pages in a way that does not simply confuse everyone who wants to read it from start to end after it was held, like the one above about the Birthright edits did. I tried to follow that one, but with all the different replies on two pages, some of them apparently deleted afterwards, it took me quite some time. ;) :I personally try to keep discussions on one page, not several. For article pages: If a discussion started on one talk page, reply on that page. If a discussion is off-topic, don't copy but move the discussion (or complete subdiscussion) to another talk page and leave a link to that page on the old one. If I don't get replies, I try to make the user aware of the existing discussion by a comment on his talk page instead of moving the discussion there. :Even on user talk pages, I try to keep the discussion together. If I see the comment on my page shortly after it was added, I reply on my page. If the comment is older, I comment on the other users talk page, but either move his initial post there (removing it from my page) or at least link back to my talk page (often also adding a link from my to his talk page). :I don't know if anyone has a better idea, but if someone wants, feel free to add these ones to . -- Cid Highwind 18:28, 14 Jan 2006 (UTC) Resizing images Alan, I noticed you're back working on images, and resizing some that I originally posted. If you read my last note to you, you'd see I'm prepared to fix the problems I created by myself, so you wouldn't have to waste your time. I only wanted your advice on how to proceed first. I know I'm new and prone to mistakes, but I'm trying to become a helpful contributor. This isn't the first time "higher powers" have bypassed my request for advice that would allow me to fix the problems I created, and it's a little insulting to be ignored. --Aurelius Kirk 10:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC) * I'm sorry you are so easily insulted. I am simply doing "my job", or rather, the admin job I got elected for. If you are so concerned about fixing your problems, you can easily do what it is I am doing, as nothing I am doing (aside from deleting the large files, which isn't essential) is beyond the capabilities of the everyday contributor. Otherwise, I am really not "wasting my time", as I am off on other offsite projects tonite and am just here doing this to maintain my presense on the site. --Alan del Beccio 10:34, 22 January 2006 (UTC) :* I'm glad to know you were not wasting your time. I was only asking for your advice on how best to correct my errors that you alerted me to. I understand that correcting them was within my capabilities as a contributor, but I wanted to make sure my approach (described above) was proper and welcome. Just a quibble, but describing the lack of response to requested advice as "a little insulting" does not equate to my being "easily insulted". BTW, thanks for finding those great pics for the Khan Noonien Singh article. --Aurelius Kirk 13:15, 22 January 2006 (UTC) Bot Questions Hi, about the &bot=1 thing, I have no idea, the wikipedia help has the section still listed... As for the pyWikipediaBot, well you first need Python (the programming language), then you need either the snapshot or current cvs. In the pywikipedia root directory you create "user-config.py" as described in meta and best is you copy my families\memoryalpha_family.py, because I changed some of the settings to MA standards. (I assume you use windows now:) Then you create a link to a command shell (right click; new link) which directs to "%SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe" and executes in the folder where the bot files are stored (for me it is "C:\Programme\Python24\files\pywikipedia"). From there you can execute any script and the first should be "login.py" which prompts for your bot's password. Then your bot is operable and can do multiple tasks, like putting interwikis, categories, templates on a page, solve disambiguations, clear redirects (both with "solve_disambiguation.py"). If you have more detailled questions, I'm on ICQ #13911745 or drop me an email -- Kobi - [[ :Kobi|( )]] 14:43, 22 January 2006 (UTC) Yarnek Sorry to bother you again :) I just tried to upload a new version of the "Yarnek.jpg" (more contrast, improved color, and "eye" lights) , but the server wouldn't allow me to replace it for some reason. I labled my version "Yarnek2.jpg". I hope you can make the proper adjustment. Thanks. --Aurelius Kirk 18:16, 22 January 2006 (UTC) * Just keep refreshing your screen, and or, keep attempting to reload upload the file to get it to save. I've been having that problem rather frequently since the upgrade and after numerous tries they always ended up sliding through. --Alan del Beccio 18:36, 22 January 2006 (UTC) :* Thanks. That did the trick. I'll leave it to you to delete "Yarnek2.jpg". --Aurelius Kirk 19:14, 22 January 2006 (UTC) Quotations on Shakespeare article Hi! Long time user of wikis...new to the concept of editing wikis. Thanks for the feedback. I'm curious on one thing...should there be one article on all of Shakespeare's sonnets or seperate articles for all 154 of them? I have my doubts about all 154 sonnets being used in the franchise, but I figure it would be better to ask someone who probably knows more about Star Trek than me. Oh, any recommendations on some good articles about Star Trek and Shakespeare? (Tyger 06:58, 26 January 2006 (UTC)) * Well as I'm sure you are aware, we already have "Hamlet", "The Tempest", "Henry V", "Julius Caesar" and "The Merchant of Venice". As for the Sonnets, it would probably be easiest to create an article along the lines of Shakespearean sonnets or whatever (in)formal name they have as a collection if any exists along the lines like I liked in red. --Alan del Beccio 07:03, 26 January 2006 (UTC) :* Oh, I meant, any printed articles with interviews from creators, producers, etc. on the subject of Shakespeare. I would like to get a better idea of how much has been influenced by the playwright. (Tyger 07:20, 26 January 2006 (UTC)) ::* Well we really wouldnt have any articles here about that (aside from whats on shakespears page with the episode titles - though im sure that section could be expanded). Otherwise I am not aware of any sources on the subject. --Alan del Beccio 07:22, 26 January 2006 (UTC) Tara and Rose I checked via google-image search: Amy Wheaton/Tara is the blonde girl, McKenzie Westmore/Rose is the brunette curly-haired girl, though she dyed her hair blonde as an adult as seen when she played Ensign Jenkins. A pic of Amy Wheaton can be found http://www.childstarlets.com/lobby/bios/amy_wheaton2.html here and here's a pic of McKenzie Westmore before she dyed her hair blonde: http://www.vh1.com/sitewide/flipbooks/img/shows/my_coolest_years/GEEK---McKenzie-Westmore.jpg, so the pics of Tara and Rose should be swapped back. --Jörg 16:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC) * Oh...oops. Thought for sure the brunette scheme of Wil and Jeremy followed through with Amy. I'll swap em. --Alan del Beccio 16:31, 1 February 2006 (UTC) I was just trying to put a box on the bottom of the page like on Wikipedia for positions that have various people ... the same could be used for CO's of vessels, Hosts of Trills ... it looks cleaner IMHO Aleksander 05:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC) re:Babel templates Hi Alan. I think we wanted to keep the templates, so that each user can still give detailed information - it's just the various categories that were considered unnecessary. Regarding the remaining category links, the Mediawiki software saves category membership apart from the actual article. When the template (+category link) was added to a page, this page became a category member. When the link was removed from the template, not all pages using that template were updated. The solution would be to make one edit to each of the user pages - either manually or better using a bot and the script "touch.py". That's what I already wanted to do some days ago, but I had some problems with getting my bot to run... -- Cid Highwind 09:17, 2 February 2006 (UTC) * Hmm, I just tried that and it didnt work. If you have a moment perhaps you could join me in the IRC. --Alan del Beccio 09:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC) Admiral Hayes (female) Sure, just uploaded a better screencap of the admiral. She's got three admiral's pips, so she must be a vice admiral, I guess. --Jörg 00:54, 3 February 2006 (UTC) * yeah, i was hoping she didnt, because it is the same rank as Hayes (Male Admiral). Hmm, she appears not to be wearing a com badge. --Alan del Beccio 00:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC) re:Highwind bot / image disclaimers The bot added the pna template to all image description pages that did not use any template starting with "image" (which is exactly the group of templates used for various licenses). The bot can't detect "free-text", so doing it that way is the only viable option. If another license is necessary, we should create another template. I already contacted Mike about the images he created, you can find his answer here. -- Cid Highwind 12:58, 3 February 2006 (UTC) Replied on its talk page--MatthewFenton 15:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC) Deletion Please could you delet Image:Vlcsnap-195567.png.--MatthewFenton 15:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC) Elaborate? :\ -- The only one i did not do was the copyright, But it should qualify as fair use.--MatthewFenton 15:26, 8 February 2006 (UTC) Image discussion Howdy Alan. FYI, there's an exchange on my talk page that you might want to comment on. --Aurelius Kirk 14:45, 10 February 2006 (UTC) Sorry! (Check e-mail) Inheritance passenger manifolds Hi guys! I've got another riddle a la Talk:Korrd for you, please take a look here: Talk:Inheritance. --Jörg 23:16, 11 February 2006 (UTC) **And another one here Talk:Khitomer Massacre. --Jörg 00:24, 12 February 2006 (UTC) Redirects Sorry about all the redirects I made (e.g. Borg technology). It just seemed like a simple way to solve a problem... :) --Galaxy001 06:49, 12 February 2006 (UTC) Delete? Why did you delete many talk pages of anonymous IP's? Is this a new policy or something: not greeting IP's? --Galaxy001 03:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC) * no, its an old policy. all ip talk pages over 7 days old get deleted. ive only been doing it for about 8 months now. --Alan del Beccio 04:03, 15 February 2006 (UTC) Revert Edit Summary I've been meaning to ask this for a while. Is there a way to automatically enter information into the edit summary during a revert - a seem to see the exact same style over and over - yet when I do them, I have to write it in myself. Perhaps I'm doing them the wrong way - I view the previous one using the history, click edit, then save. Thanks. Jaz talk | novels 04:10, 15 February 2006 (UTC) ** Nope that is the only way you can revert is the way you described. Those with sysops permissions (admins) have a "rollback" feature which is supposed to be used in reverting vandalism. --Alan del Beccio 04:19, 15 February 2006 (UTC) Talk:Kzinti - source request Alan, If you have the time, could you dig through TAS "The Slaver Weapon" for the exact quote and speaker of the line regarding the ending of the Earth-Kzin Wars '200 years ago'. This is for a much smaller-scale attempt of what you're trying with the Eugenics Wars and WWIII. It might help to have the reference handy on the Talk:Kzinti page. Thanks. --Aurelius Kirk 02:37, 19 February 2006 (UTC) Removed from my user page I am sorry i just tonight relized that this was a problem, as i just discovered the history tab, in the future i WILL use the show preview button, thanx for your politeness, and your many great contributions to this site, i have learned much from your posts and pages! and now your help in my editing skills! --KetracelWhiteJunkie 11:06, 19 February 2006 (UTC) again sorry, i am still getting used to all of the neuances of m/a thanks again for your help Thanks for cleaning up after me Hi Alan, Just wanted to say thanks for the clean up you did on the Binary star system page today. I was a little rushed to get it done, plus I'm still learning the finer points of style and formatting. I appreciate all your work on M-A! -Dave TheBluesMan 01:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC) :Check e-mail. --From Andoria with Love 06:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC) User talk pages Hey, Alan, where is the list of old user talk pages you use to know which ones to delete? (I hope that made sense...) --From Andoria with Love 07:40, 23 February 2006 (UTC) I did create one Ime Whopper from IRC *68.21.130.72 04:34, 26 February 2006 (UTC) *Whopper 04:35, 26 February 2006 (UTC) Thank goodness! An admin at last! I'm so glad you're here! Zsingaya ''Talk'' 11:33, 26 February 2006 (UTC) IRC Ban? Hey Alan, long time no see! While attempting to connect to the IRC chat, I was greeted with this message: '*** Closing Link 127.0.0.1 (Banned)'. I haven't been on IRC for quite a few weeks, so I doubt it was me who was banned (and I don't see why I would've been, rofl). Did something happen the past few weeks or another reason? Thanks. - Adm. Enzo Aquarius 15:42, 26 February 2006 (UTC) * It happened last night. We are all banned for some reason...with regards to something about our computers might be infected with a trojan. I suspect it is the result of the site being hacked. I think you can still access our IRC page through IRC.com, but you will have to ask User:Shran on the specifics of locating it exactly. --Alan del Beccio 15:44, 26 February 2006 (UTC) *Will do, and thanks for the quick notifcation! - Adm. Enzo Aquarius 15:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC) Trojan Virus? I heard of these trojan infections...the server will be down for a while if it truly is a trojan, because it will infect every computer that has a screename in the world. I have researched and found spyware to possibly temporarily fix it. I tried to get on at around 10:00, and said the same thing. Whopper 16:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC) * As I stated above you can still access the memory alpha IRC chat page through IRC.com. --Alan del Beccio 16:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC) Found another one I found another IRC site with Ma on it. Whopper 17:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC) Thanks for the welcome I'm actually wikipedia:en:User:JesseW. Just doing a few link corrections... 134.10.45.108 08:17, 27 February 2006 (UTC) Regarding concrete...lol Point taken my friend, I suppose my humour is lost on some people. However I am still taken aback by the sheer amount of *detail* that this site provides (e.g. Sam from Plexicorp having his *own page*). I understand by definition that this is a Star Trek reference; granted. However, is this a Star Trek reference to the point of ad nausea? i.e. the smallest grittiest detail can and SHOULD be included from anything and everything Star Trek related, such as Sam from Plexicorp, no matter how irrelevant or unimportant they are? To me, a reference is something someone uses and finds useful and relevant; some of the pages such as the Sam one I've ranted on about is neither useful nor relevant. I suppose as one w/a university degree I'm used to doing research and widdling out useless crap to do papers and only focusing on major information. I hope some of this makes sense to you. Truly long live and prosper, LancasterII. ::"I suppose as one w/a university degree I'm used to..." :I somehow get the impression from this statement that you think we are a bunch of backwoods bumpkins. I, for one, have a Bachelors in Biology, so I think I might know a thing or two about doing research. The thing I think you are overlooking, however, is that unlike the "cut and dry" details required in writing a research paper, what we are trying to do here is make this site a little more than the two dimensional world that appears on your tv screen by adding all the background minutiae that is otherwise ignored by other references or sites, even if it is simply 'pointless' or 'dead end'. It's all about perspective. So, with that said, was or was not Sam from Plexicorp referenced in the Star Trek universe? According to his article, he was; there are even other pages linked to his article as well! Ensign Thomas and Dr. Joshua Kim were referenced in much the same way as Sam was, and we have articles on them too, so why even worry about it? --Alan del Beccio 02:48, 28 February 2006 (UTC) Your impression is incorrect, I do not think you are all backward hicks or morons w/nothing better to do than a Star Trek encyclopedia; quite the opposite. I was just merely stating my own background to make my point. In any case, I can see that perspective; I see minutiae as chiefly unimportant, you see it as still useful to some extent; I suppose we can agree to disagree, which is quite fine with me! I still enjoy this site and hopefully I can add some more relevant contributions. ;) LancasterII PS: boy did I suck at science...my HonBA was in history:P! Old, distorted caps Howdy, Alan... I wanted to give you a heads up on what I'm starting on tonight. I've come across a vein of screencaps uploaded by User:Balok in 2004. Almost all of them are distorted (wide) headshots. I'm going through and getting better, non-distorted shots of the images where I can. I'll keep to the same aspect ratio and crops so other page layouts aren't disturbed, and I'll update the text/links/cats as I go along. It'll be a bit longer before I start uploading, so if this is a bad idea or adds to your burden, please let me know. Thanks --Aurelius Kirk 11:29, 28 February 2006 (UTC) * I wouldn't worry about the ratios and crops as long as the images are clear views and not over cropped. I've noticed a few are a bit tight on the actors faces and I think a typical headshot should have a little space around it, when possible, instead of that 'zoomed in' feel. Otherwise, as long as you upload your images with the same file name as the other images it shouldn't be an issue. --Alan del Beccio 11:37, 28 February 2006 (UTC) :* OK. Glad to know you feel the same about not cropping so close. I'll try for comparable (or smaller) file sizes as well. Thanks. --Aurelius Kirk 11:44, 28 February 2006 (UTC) Admin? Hey, I just read an old post on Ten Forward in which Eelco asked for support in dealing with vandalism on the Dutch version of MA. You were the only one kind enough to respond but we didn't follow up on that. Too busy I suppose. I know it's a while back, but I was just wondering if you're still interested to help us. --Patricia 17:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)